This South African edition of Microeconomics is essential reading for all students taking introductory economics modules on undergraduate courses throughout South Africa. It is also ideal for use with the microeconomics component of MBA courses.

The text contains updated case studies, set against a South African context to illustrate how the principles of economics relate to your life. The news articles are based on news events in South Africa along with questions to help you apply your knowledge and to build your understanding.

This text is designed to give you the confidence and ability to think like an economist.

Although South Africa’s informal sector is small compared to other developing countries, it nevertheless provides livelihoods, employment and income for millions of workers and business owners. Almost half of informal-sector workers work in firms with employees. The annual entry of new enterprises is quite high, as is the number of informal enterprises that grow their employment. There is no shortage of entrepreneurship and desire to grow.

However, obstacles and constraints cause hardship and failure, pointing to the need for well-designed policies to enable and support the sector, rather than suppress it. The same goes for formalisation. Recognising the informal sector as an integral part of the economy, rather than ignoring it, is a crucial first step towards instituting a ‘smart’ policy approach.

The South African Informal Sector is strongly evidence- and data-driven, with substantial quantitative contributions combined with qualitative findings – suitable for an era of increased pressure for evidence-based policy-making – and utilises several disciplinary perspectives.

Now firmly established as one of the leading economics principles texts in the UK and Europe, the sixth edition of Microeconomics has been fully updated.

Much revered for its friendly and accessible approach, emphasis on active learning and unrivalled support resources, this edition features brand-new new coverage of the impact of globalization, digitization and the gig economy.

Social enterprises represent a new kind of venture, dedicated to pursuing profits for owners and benefits for society. Social Enterprise Law provides tools that will allow them to raise the capital they need to flourish. Social Enterprise Law weaves innovation in contract and corporate governance into powerful protections against insiders sacrificing goals such as environmental sustainability in the pursuit of short-term profits. Creating a stable balance between financial returns and public benefits will allow social entrepreneurs to team up with impact investors that share their vision of a double bottom line. Brakman Reiser and Dean show how novel legal technologies can allow social enterprises to access capital markets, including unconventional sources such as crowdfunding. With its straightforward insights into complex areas of the law, the book shows how a social mission can even be shielded from the turbulence of an acquisition or bankruptcy. It also shows why, as the metrics available to measure the impact of social missions on individuals and communities become more sophisticated, such legal innovations will continue to become more robust. By providing a comprehensive survey of the U.S. laws and a bold vision for how legal institutions across the globe could be reformed, this book offers new insights and approaches to help social enterprises raise the capital they need to flourish. It offers a rich guide for students, entrepreneurs, investors, and practitioners.

This new text deals with topics that are at the core of microeconomic theory - the economics of uncertainty and the economics of games and decisions. It contains a chapter on non-expected utility theory and very up to date coverage of such topics as risk aversion, stochastic dominance and mean-variance utility theory as well as a number of chapters that discuss and illustrate the use of game theory in making decisions under uncertainty.

Economics and the Business Environment is directed at students who will be taking up managerial positions in trade and industry or in government. The economic environment of European companies is central to the book giving students a good impression of recent developments within the European economy.

The theories described enable students to:

• calculate how much competition firms within a particular business sector are exposed to
• analyze the current economic position of a particular country and make exchange rate prognoses
• gauge the effect of the economic environment on business sales and profits.

Complicated analyses and mathematical models have been avoided as much as possible. Instead, diagrams and graphs illustrate the causal relationships between economic factors, making this book an ideal primer for those needing the basics of economics for their business degree.

Elgar Advanced Introductions are stimulating and thoughtful introductions to major fields in the social sciences, business and law, expertly written by the world's leading scholars. Designed to be accessible yet rigorous, they offer concise and lucid surveys of the substantive and policy issues associated with discrete subject areas. Offering an engaging overview of the concepts of bounded rationality and their applications, this stimulating Advanced Introduction engages with the topic in a constructively critical manner to introduce new ideas. Chapters cover key topics including: optimally imperfect decisions; ecological rationality; the role of bounded rationality in evolutionary economics; satisficing as a response to bounded rationality; desirable types of economic decisions; the relational exercise of foresight; and the impact of bounded rationality on the efficiency of organizations. Key Features: Demonstrates the progress made in the field over the last century Presents a unique, succinct and useful coverage of the core issues in the topic Outlines different concepts of rationality and specifies factors that result in limited rationality Postgraduate and advanced undergraduate economics and business management students will find this a stimulating read. The easy-to-follow exposition of the topic and careful use of diagrams will also make this an interesting book for decision makers, business managers and policy makers who have studied economics or business administration.

Exploring why professional team sport clubs are almost always able to survive despite financial mismanagement, inflated player salaries and persistent deficits, this book provides new evidence on how to explain this phenomenon. It looks at the context in which many clubs operate - the soft budget constraint - and how the clubs in this respect resemble state-owned enterprises in socialist countries or big banks in financial crises. Chapters discuss the challenge of hardening the budget constraint, including UEFA's Financial Fair Play regulation. They include new data about the soft budget constraint phenomenon, including evidence from Central and Eastern Europe. Leading scholars in the field develop the theoretical approach to the topic using institutional theory, dialogue with critics and discussions on the merits and limits of soft budgets. The book also investigates key case studies of bailouts and liquidation of professional sports teams. This will be an invigorating read for scholars and students of sports economics and sports management. It will also be helpful to managers and directors in professional sports clubs looking for a better understanding of the soft budget constraint.

With the economy currently in turmoil, understanding how businesses and consumers interact is more important than ever for business owners and students of economics, alike. A handy, fluff-free resource tool, our 3-panel (6-page) guide simplifies the world of microeconomics through the use of definitions, formulas and full-color tables and charts."

Transport Economics is a revised and refined fourth edition of a well-established textbook which applies economic analysis to transport issues. Each chapter has been carefully reworked and includes new material dealing with the regulation of transport markets. To assist in pedagogy, twenty or so free standing 'Exhibits' now provide a variety of case studies and narratives to supplement the text. More up-to-date examples and illustrations also make the understanding of economic principles easier and assist in the assimilation of economic concepts. The theoretical content is supported with considerable empirical evidence drawn from a wide range of international sources. Although aimed primarily at university students, this volume is accessible to non-specialists who have an interest in transport economics. It has no modal bias but rather examines in general terms the many aspects of the demand for, and supply of, transport together with the various methods of government intervention needed to ensure that social and environmental criteria are attained. This successful and widely adopted textbook has been meticulously revised and updated for the fourth edition. As the best intermediate text currently available, it will be welcomed by students, policymakers and all those concerned with the supply of transport services.

In microeconomics, the decisions and functioning of individual consumers and households (what to do, what to buy, etc.), and firms or other organisations (what goods to produce, how to produce them, what prices to charge, etc.) are considered. It includes the study of the demand, supply and prices of individual goods and services such as petrol, maize, haircuts and medical services.

Understanding microeconomics is a comprehensive introduction to microeconomics in general, set against a contemporary South African background. The easy style and many practical examples make the content extremely accessible. The book covers all the material usually prescribed for introductory courses, and it lays a solid foundation for intermediate and advanced studies in economics.

This second edition is a thoroughly revised and slightly expanded version of the original one. Examples have been adjusted (where necessary), a few new topics are introduced and review questions are provided at the end of each chapter.

Elgar Research Agendas outline the future of research in a given area. Leading scholars are given the space to explore their subject in provocative ways, and map out the potential directions of travel. They are relevant but also visionary. With contributions from an international range of active researchers, this Research Agenda provides a timely literature review on core topics related to consumer financial behavior. Chapters cover financial management behavior, desirable financial behavior and any financial behavior that helps improve financial wellbeing. The Research Agenda is split into two parts, first covering determinants of financial behavior and then outcomes. Top scholars in the field explore a broad range of determinants, including financial literacy, education, socialization, access, technology, retirement policies, trading and investment, and neuroscience. The book moves on to explore financial capability, wellbeing, fragility and vulnerability, offering a comprehensive examination of the topic. Economics and financial behavior researchers and students will benefit from the thorough and incisive literature reviews in this Research Agenda. It will also be a valuable resource for business practitioners looking for an up-to-date insight on research in the field.

Abundant with practical advice and ready-to-use teaching examples, this dynamic guide will help both new and experienced instructors of Principles of Microeconomics to reconsider and refine their courses. Mark Maier and Phil Ruder assemble the wisdom of 25 eminent scholars of economic education on how best to introduce students to the discipline and inspire a long-lasting passion for microeconomics. Beyond offering guidance to educators on how to improve students' learning experience, the book proposes measures for addressing many of the vexing challenges that face the economics discipline today. Chapters provide suggestions on (1) how to capture students' attention and ensure their continued engagement, (2) including course content that focuses on important public policy topics and pressing issues within modern society, (3) adopting evidence-based pedagogical strategies in the classroom and online, and (4) tackling issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion within the discipline. The ideas advanced in this illuminating guide highlight the possibility of continued improvement throughout one's teaching career. The jargon-free advice in this insightful teaching guide will also be of interest to deans, teaching and learning center directors, and other administrators of undergraduate institutions.

The Handbook of Experimental Game Theory offers a comprehensive analysis of the field, discussing foundational topics that are at the core of applied game theory. It highlights the nuances that scientific experiments have delivered to our understanding of strategic interactions among decision makers. Leading experts explore methodological considerations and games of complete and incomplete information to offer new directions for research in experimental game theory. Chapters demonstrate transformative behavioral research focused on classic topics in game theory such as cooperation and coordination games. Taking a scientific approach to the study of game theory, this innovative Handbook provides an insight into laboratory and field experiments that test game theoretic propositions and suggests new ways of modeling strategic behavior. It takes a forward-thinking position, addressing the challenges inherent in innovations surrounding the measurement of strategic behavior using experimental methods. This Handbook will prove to be a valuable resource for scholars and students who are looking to gain a broader understanding of experimental game theory and how to contribute to its advancement. It will also be of particular interest to researchers in experimental and behavioral economics.

This timely Modern Guide offers critical insights into developments in both professional and recreational sports through the lens of the economic forces that determine them. It explores the benefits of the relationship between sports and economics, highlighting ways that economic research can help to understand sports better and the ways that sport provides opportunities to test economic theories. With both theoretical and empirical chapters, the book looks at the development of European sports economics over the last 20 years, the relationship between competitive balance and attendance, and the potential economic impact of sports events. Chapters further examine specific issues in sports from an economic perspective, including labour market restrictions on professional leagues, refereeing, team dynamics, the importance of good players versus good results and the sports analytics revolution due to big data. The use of state-of-the-art empirical methods makes this Modern Guide a crucial read for economists and sports science researchers looking to better understand both the relationship between the two fields and their own area of research. Sports policy makers will also appreciate the in-depth discussion on a range of different recreational and professional sports.

Written in a comprehensive yet accessible style, this Handbook introduces readers to a range of modern empirical methods with applications in microeconomics, illustrating how to use two of the most popular software packages, Stata and R, in microeconometric applications. International contributors expertly investigate the development of advanced methods driven by the accumulation of numerous data sets at the level of individuals, households and firms, and by an increase in the capacity and speed of computers. The Handbook highlights that, while the more traditional empirical methods were largely limited to establishing correlations, these new methods aim to uncover causality. Examination of these advances shows new possibilities for applied research in microeconomics in the estimation of sophisticated structural models and the evaluation of policy interventions. This insightful Handbook is a must-read for graduate students and instructors in applied microeconomics as well as researchers in government departments and academia pursuing modern advanced methods of policy evaluation and data analysis.

This forward-thinking book examines the potential impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic on productivity. Productivity and the Pandemic features 21 chapters authored by 46 experts, examining different aspects of how the pandemic is likely to impact on the economy, society and governance in the medium- and long-term. Drawing on a range of empirical evidence, analytical arguments and new conceptual insights, the book challenges our thinking on many dimensions. With a keen focus on place, firms, production factors and institutions, the chapters highlight how the pre-existing challenges to productivity have been variously exacerbated and mitigated by the pandemic and points out ways forward for appropriate policy-thinking in response to the crisis. An important read for scholars and students interested in the impact of the pandemic, this book will also be an invigorating read for economists and policy-makers looking for more information on how the pandemic and resulting economic recession is affecting productivity.

Elgar Research Agendas outline the future of research in a given area. Leading scholars are given the space to explore their subject in provocative ways, and map out the potential directions of travel. They are relevant but also visionary. Written by well-established researchers in behavioural economics, this Research Agenda illustrates the application of incentivised decision-making experiments, highlighting how this can add a new and novel dimension to social science research. Informative and timely, it explores how experiments are being used by pioneers in a diverse range of fields when research questions may not be amenable to field studies, vignettes or surveys. Offering fruitful cross-disciplinary discussions, the chapters look at incentivised decision-making experiments in the study of: social norms, law and economics, environmental regulations, entrepreneurship, healthy behaviour, gender and leadership, political ideology, and neuroeconomics. Chapters provide an opportunity for experienced experimental economists to develop more innovative applications of their tools and scope for less experienced scholars to learn how to incorporate experiments in their research questions. Researchers in economics, political science, sociology, as well as business and management will find this to be a beneficial read. Policy makers looking to understand how experimental tools and behavioural nudges are used to improve policy will also appreciate the key theoretical and practical applications of the topics offered in this Research Agenda.

Donald W. Katzner explores concepts, their properties, and the implications of those properties that underlie many of the current approaches to the economics of firm organization. The book examines these matters in important new ways and in ways that have not been fully considered in the existing literature. Topics covered include authority structures, the social interaction (including supervision) among employees required to fulfill the responsibilities of their jobs, participatory decision making to the extent that it occurs, the impact of time, and certain kinds of complexity and efficiency, all of which are fundamental to analyses of the internal organization of the economic firm. The author provides a clear and extensive presentation of the basic ideas, and examines how they relate to the firm's operation and profitability. He also develops and employs measures of the dimensions of pyramidal authority structures and analyzes the relationship between them. This book should be of interest to graduate students and scholars interested in the economic fundamentals of firm organization. It is relevant for an introductory graduate course in organization theory in economics departments and business schools. It will also appeal to scholars in such fields as sociology and psychology who work in organization theory from the perspective of their own disciplines.

This defining and original book explores the history of monopoly power and of its relation to competition, focusing on the innovative contributions of the Italian Marginalists ? Pareto, Pantaleoni, De Viti de Marco and Barone. Manuela Mosca analyses their articulate vision of competition, and the structural and strategic entry barriers considered in their works to enrich existing literature on the history of the sources of market power. The book is not limited to the reconstruction of the elaboration of pure theory, it also highlights its policy implications and how this group applied their theories as cutting-edge experiments in analysing the labour market, socialism, the Great War and gender issues, against the background of the political situation of the period. Monopoly Power and Competition is a vital resource for historians of economic thought, as it explores a relatively untouched area of microeconomics in historical perspective, and reveals the theories surrounding monopoly power and competition. Microeconomists and industrial organisation scholars would similarly benefit from the knowledge of the origins of many microeconomic tools and notions.

This book uses differences in firm and market regulation and organization to explain differences in national economic performance. These differences affect the way in which firms process information, which is crucial to performance. Applying game theory, contract theory, and information theory, Aoki describes the rules and conventions in Japan, the USA, and the transitional economies. He shows how firms can achieveDSand in the case of Japan, maintainDScompetitive advantage in international markets.

Sport has the power to change the world.'' Sports Economics Uncut expresses this insight from Nelson Mandela, exploring sports as a fascinating mirror of the world and a powerful agent of change. In this book, Brian Goff covers subjects ranging from the ebb and flow of racial discrimination, to inequality, law enforcement, managers and risky decisions, club membership, and politics. Much more than merely a review or synthesis, this work extends existing perspectives and explores provocative questions such as: how systematic is racial bias in pro sports today? Is all racial segregation in sports due to racial bias? How much are college athletes really worth, and is league parity really optimal? This book highlights the fascinating paradox of the modest revenues spent on sports but the enormous intangible value of it. The author explains how recent evidence of racial bias in sports actually illustrates how much ground has been gained in society on racial matters; how the scandals of college sports are a built-in feature of a world in which football and basketball athletes are worth millions; how athletic skill can vary widely across and within regions and races, and how this can influence positioning decisions; and how managers reflect both traditional economic views of decision making and more recent behavioral views. While drawing from widespread academic studies, this is a lively presentation accessible to a wide audience, with extensive but easy to digest data. Students and scholars of sports economics, as well as those studying sports analysis or related areas, will find it an engaging and eye-opening read.

This forward-thinking book examines the potential impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic on productivity. Productivity and the Pandemic features 21 chapters authored by 46 experts, examining different aspects of how the pandemic is likely to impact on the economy, society and governance in the medium- and long-term. Drawing on a range of empirical evidence, analytical arguments and new conceptual insights, the book challenges our thinking on many dimensions. With a keen focus on place, firms, production factors and institutions, the chapters highlight how the pre-existing challenges to productivity have been variously exacerbated and mitigated by the pandemic and points out ways forward for appropriate policy-thinking in response to the crisis. An important read for scholars and students interested in the impact of the pandemic, this book will also be an invigorating read for economists and policy-makers looking for more information on how the pandemic and resulting economic recession is affecting productivity.

Economic Effects of Natural Disasters explores how natural disasters affect sources of economic growth and development. Using theoretical econometrics and real-world data, and drawing on advances in climate change economics, the book shows scholars and researchers how to use various research methods and techniques to investigate and respond to natural disasters. No other book presents empirical frameworks for the evaluation of the quality of macroeconomic research practice with a focus on climate change and natural disasters. Because many of these subjects are so large, different regions of the world use different approaches, hence this resource presents tailored economic applications and evidence.